Over 17,000 benefit from poverty eradication
Lindiwe Mozola | Wednesday November 8, 2017 14:01
Speaking at the annual Social and Community Development Exposition (S&CD Expo) Baruti said government’s efforts to uplift Batswana out of poverty have borne fruit and will continue doing so as long as people grab the opportunities.
He said CDC is the biggest in the country and assisting a council of such magnitude can prove to be difficult.
He, however, said they try their utmost best as S&CD to dispense government resources to residents.
“To date, S&CD has assisted 24,000 beneficiaries in CDC including the poverty eradication projects topping with 17,000 beneficiaries. Although some of the projects have not been successful due to desertion by the owners, we are still hopeful that many have benefitted and their livelihoods have changed tremendously,” he said.
He added that the expo is in its sixth term and the main purpose of the expo is intended to give beneficiaries exposure in showcasing and marketing their services.
At the same time, it is during this expo that they rewarded hard workers through awards, which saw 10 people walking away P5,000 richer.
When giving the key note address, deputy director of community development, Delic Sehunwe said it is through the expo that S&CD department deemed it fit to educate the general public, stakeholders and clientele on services and programmes they offer.
She said for the various programmes and services provided by the department to bear fruit, users need to show a great deal of commitment and determination for transformative change. She added: “Therefore, the responsibility for resilience building and the power to be successful rests entirely upon beneficiaries that have made this decision after taking the resource rendered to develop themselves and their communities”.
She said that this year’s theme is ‘Building Resilient Communities: A stepping stone towards sustainable livelihoods’. She said by being resilient it means being able to recover quickly from difficult life conditions at the same time being able to maintain acceptable standards of living presently and in the future.
Sehunwe noted that it is always sad to see the beneficiaries’ lives unchanging regardless of the government efforts to assist them. She said such incidents are unfortunate because beneficiaries would have been provided resources to transform their lives.
“But some choose to abandon their projects all together while some will consume all the profits failing to expand the businesses. Let us not forget why government created these programmes, which are meant to eradicate poverty permanently and see everyone living a sustainable and independent life,” Sehunwe explained.
She also urged service providers to be respectful towards customers at all times and treat complaints as useful feedback for improved service delivery.